Monday, March 31, 2014

"Three Short Summers: The Story of Hiawatha Caverns (written for the Journal of Spelean History, July, 1974)

by Gary K. Soule

Hiawatha Gaverns is a formerly commercialized cave located in the hilly farmland near Witoka, in southeastern Minnesota. Although the cave was discovered as recently as 1962, and operated commercially during the summers of 1964, 1965, and 1966. today the only thing remaining is an old shed with the words "Hiawatha Caverns" in big red letters painted on it. Inside the shed a few of the old directional signs to the cave may be found, and a short distance down a brush-covered hill one may find the entrance to a steeply slanted metal tunnel that disappears into the side of a hill. Although the farmer Ed Meitzke, who owns the land tries to keep the tunnel door locked, vandals have partly succeeded in destroying what at one time was a very pretty commercial cave.

One Spring Ed Neitzke noticed that a narrow shaft open­ ed up on the side of a hill that was being used as a cow pasture. He was afraid of losing a cow into the opening. so he filled it with fence posts. Shortly afterwards a neighbor boy. Carl Douglas, tied a piece of rope to a fence post and worked his way down a narrow partially blocked opening. He discovered a cave, that according to the Winona Daily News reports, reached a depth of 70 feet and had a length of about 1/4 mile. (After seeing the cave myself I would say the total depth is about 30 to 40 feet, and the cave has a little bit less than l/8th mile of passage which had been opened to the public.)

The cave went largely unnoticed until the following year, when two Illinois business men became interested in the cave. They talked the owner into giving them a 99-year lease on the cave so that they could commercialize it. In turn, they would pay him $2,500 a year, plus 10% of all admission fees collected. They spent all of 1963 and the first six months of 1964 developing the cave at a cost of $20,000.

The development included removing about 1/2 million pounds of clay and rock, and digging a new horizontal entrance into the cave. Colored electric lights and gravel­ed walkways were put into the cave.

The commercial cave tours were priced at $2.00 for adults and lasted about one hour. At one time, there had been another entrance to the cave some 15 yards from the main entrance. but today it is sealed shut. All the cave guides were girls and at one. time ten of them were employed.

The third summer, a man named Blanchard took over the management of the cave. The managers realized that the cave was not going to be a success. One summer night during the 1966 tourist season, this second owner packed up and left in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. The cave was crudely run until the fall of 1966, and then closed for good, thus adding another name to the never ending list of commercial caves that are no more.

For those who are interested in old commercial cave literature and related memorabilia, it should be pointed out that in addition to several newspaper clippings and ads, the cave had two different types of red, white and black brochures, a car bumper sticker., and lettered T-shirts that had the cave name printed on them.

The bumper sticker was of the adhesive -type and featured red letters on a black background. A row of simulated stalactites was sketched on the bottom third of the sticker, which read "Newly discovered Hiawatha Caverns". Witoka, Minn.

While it is true that this cave is not historically old like the Decorah Ice Cave and Wompi Cave in Iowa, it still has a fascinating, although short history of its own -- one that should be recorded for the sake of spelean history."

Thursday, March 27, 2014

What we have here are 7 complete discs from the Big 4 Hits label, plus 20+ odd tracks from other Big 4 Hits records. I want to thank Hank The Smoker who does the Hank Williams discography page. He sent me some tracks for this.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Dewain Olby (1925-1981) is known for his "Ironworker Blues" single on Soma, but I haven't seen anything else by him until now. He was from Wisconsin.

"I heard of Wren Studios. Lee
Newman who used to be the engineer at WTCN, opened a recording studio at
the Time building, which is no longer there. I
think the Glenrays original acetate, prior to me was done there. - David Hersk (email)

This is possibly an answer song to Bill Anderson's "City Lights". Similar melody.

Friday, March 14, 2014

I got an email from the real Tony Darro, so I thought I'd revise this 2011 post. I want to thank Tony for allowing me to share his music on the blog, and for not being offended and trying to sue me like some folks who I won't mention by name (because they'll sue me!)

For some reason the RCA matrix starts with a letter K, which meant 1959. But every other source says 1960 for this record.

Here is an email from Tony:

"Tony Darro was the stage name I adopted when I became a singer in 1960, at the age of 20. I was born in
Philly (West) in 1939 on Dec. 18th
and the song Sad Sad and Lonely was a song my Mother to use to sing to
me and my two brothers in a much slower beat. I recorded a number of
songs at Bell Sound Studios in New York back in 1960, including: Young Hearts, The Tender Age ,
I Haven't Anybody to Love, Double Brandy, Packing My Blues, Cleo. As a matter
of fact, Bobby Rydell also recorded some songs in the same studio the
same night I did.

My name often gets confused with the actor Tony Darrow who spells
his name with a W. I was also on both
the Milt Grant and Buddy Dean shows on Television in New York back in the
60's, I performed at shows ( record hops ) with chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell,
Freddie Cannon, Fats Domino, (among others whom I've forgotten). I am 74 yrs old now and still
married to the same woman for 52 years. Three Children, Girl Angela, Boys
, Anthony (Tony) and Richard , 6 grandchildren and live in Myrtle Beach
SC"

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

This record is in pretty rough shape, but it's probably worth sharing. I think the mixing could have been better, as the voices get drowned out by the instruments. Could have been part of a set since it says Record 1.

About Me

Transferring forgotten records into digital format. I especially seek music unavailable on cd, and do my best to post music unavailable elsewhere on the internet. If someone else has posted music, you probably won't see it repeated here unless my audio transfer is superior to theirs.

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For access to the audio files of these records, you must send me an email requesting permission to be put on the email list. This is to avoid youtubers who were making money off my work. You can request any audio files from any blog post I've ever done.
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